Vegan Food Tools and Tips

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Traditional carbonara is a hot pasta dish made with pork, cream, eggs, and pepper. Here I veganized the recipe, also making it a lot healthier, using a base of baked zucchini, cauliflower, and cultured soy yogurt for the cream sauce.

I ran across this vegan parmesan cheese at Whole Foods the other day and WOW! It’s really good. I used it at the end of the recipe as the “hard cheese” component of traditional carbonara.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Chop up the zucchini and cauliflower, put it on a sheet pan, and drizzle with olive oil, tamari, and black pepper. Put it in the oven.

Chop the shiitakes into slices and drizzle with tamari, olive oil, and liquid smoke on a sheet pan. Put in oven with the vegetables.

You’ll need to check and flip both the veggies and the mushrooms several times to avoid burning them. When the veggies are finished they should be soft and browned. The bacun should be chewy and NOT burned to a blackened crisp 🙂 They will get crunchier as they cool.

Put the salted water on to boil once the veggies and bacun are finished.

Put the roasted veggies and the rest of the cream sauce ingredients into the blender and blend until smooth and warmed through. If the vegetables are still hot from the oven you can blend them for a shorter period. This sauce doesn’t get cooked again though and will need to be warm enough to cook the onion. It doesn’t have to be smoking hot, but definitely warm.

Cook your pasta and plate everything up. I use more black pepper, Italian herbs, and a little Frank’s hot sauce to finish the plate. Delicious!!